- In May 2021, AT&T announced that it had reached an agreement to merge WarnerMedia with Discovery. It was completed a year later.
- The novelty came five years after AT&T took over Time Warner for $85 billion (later renamed WarnerMedia).
- Discovery’s business includes channels such as Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel; and generates content on HGTV, Food Network and TLC. WarnerMedia owns HBO and HBO Max, which together have more than 60 million subscribers worldwide.
This Thursday, August 4, the brand new company that was born from the spin-off of Warner Media from AT&T, with Discovery, Warner Bros Discovery Inc.will reveal what its streaming strategy will be when it reports second-quarter revenue and profit.
The company is also expected to disclose further details on how it hopes to unite in a service of streaming movies from the HBO Max service with reality shows from Discovery+.
The idea, as published Reutersis to launch a new platform whose price and name, for now, are not known.
One of Warner Bros Discovery’s strategies to grow would be the launch of free plans with advertising that would coexist with the main subscription service.
Among the possible announcements is that of a streaming based on the large stock of classic films that Warner Bros has on its payroll, content that today does not have much attention within HBO Max.
Warner Bros Discovery has a marketing strategy
The plan that would be announced today was drawn up in recent months by David Zaslavthe CEO of Warner Bros Discovery, along with specialists from Warner Media’s film, television, digital broadcast and video game businesses.
The project began in April, after the merger with Discovery that involved 45 billion dollars.
According to US media, some overlapping areas may be closed after the merger, such as the unscripted television unit that has under its umbrella the reality shows current HBO Max, such as “Fboy Island” Y “The Hype”.
This is so since Discovery has much more oiled everything in that television genre.
In parallel, layoffs are expected, which would take place between now and the end of the year.
Zaslav wants reduce costs as much as possible he promised investors to save three billion dollars when the deal closed.
Zaslav is reviewing all agreements both companies have with executives and content creators.
For example, the suitability of the 250 million dollar contract that WarnerMedia signed in 2019 with JJ Abrams and his production company, Bad Robot, is being analyzed.
In this sense, he left out “Demimond”a science fiction series for HBO that had a budget of more than 200 million dollars.
Warner Bros Discovery’s well-known strategy is to sideline expensive theatrical and streaming movies like “Batgirl”which had a budget of 90 million dollars,
The film was scheduled to stream on HBO Max in late 2022, but the studio canceled it after negative feedback from test screenings suggested it needed more work, an additional expense the studio is in no position to afford.
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